Bipartisanship lost?

Look no further than what transpired at the Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday for the answer: Bipartisanship has been sacrificed at the altar of preserving tax breaks for the very wealthiest.

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A decade ago, current Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and I worked together as allies to protect the Social Services Block Grant. Created in 1981, the block grant has been a key source of flexible funding for critical social services.

It provides Meals on Wheels and other supportive services for 1.7 million seniors. It helps nearly one million disabled individuals through respite care and transportation. And it provides child care and related assistance for more than three million children and child protective services for nearly two million at-risk children.

From 2000 through 2003, I worked together with Reps. Camp, Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.) and Amo Houghton – all Republicans then on the Ways and Means Committee – to restore funding for the Social Services Block Grant. We wrote letters. We introduced legislation that garnered 66 Democratic cosponsors and 17 Republican cosponsors. We saved the program.

But Wednesday, Camp and all the Republicans on the committee voted to cut the program entirely.

They did so to implement the priorities of the House Republican budget: Tax cuts for the very wealthiest, paid for by seniors, middle class families and the poorest and most vulnerable.

Reflecting their claim and creed that support programs risk becoming – in the words of Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) – “a hammock,” the highest incomes are untouchable while programs for the youngest to the oldest are shredded.

Republicans are targeting people at the bottom in the face of evidence that 93 percent of income growth went to the top 1 percent in 2010. This week in the House they are even doubling down on the Bush tax cuts by passing legislation – H.R. 9 – to provide 125,000 taxpayers making more than $1 million a year an additional tax break of $58,800 a year.

So when people bemoan the lack of bipartisanship, they should look no further than how Republicans have abandoned past bipartisan efforts and are instead tying themselves in knots to preserve tax cuts for the very wealthiest.

Sander Levin (D- Mich.) is the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee.